More information about Carol Moseley Braun's financial life trickled out of her campaign Wednesday, with representatives for the mayoral candidate releasing additional pages of her 2008 and 2009 federal income tax returns but offering no explanation for some of the questions they raised.
Newly released pages of her 2008 return show she claimed a loss of more than $120,000 for a public speaking business, CMB One Corp., even though she indicated a day earlier that her financial troubles stemmed from her organic food company.
Braun's attempts to match some of her opponents and release personal tax returns in the name of transparency has created more questions than answers in recent days. Documents released Wednesday offered no clarity on what the former U.S. senator is really worth or how her finances are managed.
Braun held a news conference near a crime scene Wednesday to decry city violence but refused to answer questions about her finances or about what her tax returns say about her ability to manage money. She said she had released a statement Tuesday, and "that's all there is to it."
The statement accompanied the 1040 forms for her 2008 and 2009 federal income tax returns, which she had initially refused to release. Her statement suggested Braun's organic food business, Ambassador Organics, was struggling and responsible for her losses, while offering no specifics. She categorized herself as a fighter who understands the hard times that regular Chicagoans face.
Her campaign has referred questions to a lawyer for Braun, Louis Vitullo, who said Wednesday that it would be at least another day before media inquiries on Braun's finances will be addressed -- if at all. Vitullo said Braun had decided to release another year of returns, for 2007, by around midday Thursday.
The returns Braun released Tuesday showed a net income of only about $15,000 in 2009 and losses of $225,000 the year before. The newly released documents indicated that $122,000 of those 2008 losses came from CMB One, her speaking enterprise, but a tax schedule that could offer more details was not provided by the campaign.
Some losses in her 2009 return are attributed to business expenses, such as the use of her Hyde Park home, but there are missing documents that raise further questions.
In the 2009 Schedule C disclosure about income related to "public speaking," Braun reports income of $10,556 but a net loss of $6,322 after factoring in expenses that included more than $8,000 for use of her home.
However, in another part of the tax return, under Schedule E, she reports that CMB One, which she has listed in other public documents as her public speaking firm, actually lost $17,505. The return notes that the $17,000 loss is described in yet another document, Schedule K-1, but Braun did not release that document Wednesday.
Braun surfaced Wednesday on the South Side at the scene of a shooting in the 6900 block of South Marshfield Avenue to say that if elected mayor, she won't tolerate violence and will push for more community involvement and economic development. When a reporter asked about the tax returns and how she is paying her bills, Braun asked what media outlet he was from and told him her business is fine.
"Some of you may work for the Tribune or the Sun-Times, and last time I looked, the Tribune was in bankruptcy," Braun said.
"There's a kid laying up dead," she said, as she got into a waiting car near where blood was still frozen on the street. "Come on guys, be responsible yourselves."
As of Wednesday evening, Chicago police said neither of the two teens shot had died in the incident.
Tribune reporter Ray Gibson contributed.
--Jeff Coen and David Heinzmann
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